Kevin Phillips has arrived at Stoke City trying to train the principles that made him so consistently prolific.

There has been a lot of repetition in training sessions at Clayton Wood since Phillips joined as coach early in the summer with an extra responsibility for working with strikers.

And no one who saw Phillips playing in his 282-goal career will be surprised by the drills, hoping to emulate his own success in the box.

“When I work with strikers I try to put them in game-realistic situations, which I know is hard when you’re not in a match,” he said.

“I try to recreate stuff. The stats show that 85 per cent of goals are scored in the 18-yard box so I try to do a lot of work in the area; reactions, first time finishes, putting lots of mannequins in there for little movements – and getting repetitions, just getting used to hitting the target.

“You know, I was messing around after training and still when you hear that ball hit the back of the net there is no better feeling for a striker. I’m just trying to get them used to finishing and finishing.”

Kevin Phillips showing off the Golden Boot trophy after being Premier League top scorer in 1999/2000. (Image: PA Photo: Owen Humphreys)

Stoke scored 80 per cent of their goals inside the area last season (28 of 35) – but it’s the overall figure rather than the ratio which explained why the team were dumped out of the Premier League.

Sure, Cardiff went up with 69 goals last season, Huddersfield with 56 through the play-offs a year previously, but still a lot more are needed even if it’s at a lower level.

And Phillips and Gary Rowett know exactly what’s required after their experience over the last few years – and that won’t have changed too much after losing their curtain raiser at Leeds last Sunday.

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Phillips said: “I’ve been around the Championship and coaching in it a long, long time now and you can’t let one result get you down. Of course it’s the first game of the season but you can’t let it affect you and your game plan moving forward.

“You want to start the season well but it’s how you finish it that’s important from my experience.

“If you look at the stats from over the years, I think about 85 per cent of teams that have come down from the Premier League have lost their first game. There have still been many teams that have bounced back straight away.

“What we have to do is bounce back from that defeat pretty quickly. You can’t dwell on it. There are 45 games still to play – and that might have done us a bit of good actually, showing the lads in the Championship what it’s all about.

“They’ve had a taste of it now and they’ll go into Saturday fully prepared.”

Stoke City manager Gary Rowett (centre) and first team coach Kevin Phillips (left) head to the dug-out at the bet365 Stadium. (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)

So onto Brentford and Phillips is relishing his first proper taste of the bet365 Stadium in the home camp.

He said: “I’m looking forward to it. Whenever I played here it’s a fantastic place to play football – and I never scored here and I don’t think I ever won here either!

“It just shows what a tough place it can be and we have to get it back like that, make it a fortress. The only way we can do that is by playing well, putting in a performance, and also the stadium being full.

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“We all saw the atmosphere at Leeds on Sunday and for our first home game I’m sure it will be pretty similar. The atmosphere when it gets going here is incredible.”

Not that anyone is taking Brentford lightly. They started their season with a 5-1 romp over Rotherham, having only just missed out on the play-offs last term.

Phillips said: “They’re a good side, they’ve been a good Championship team for a long time and they like to play football. We will do our work on them but ultimately it’s about us, how we react from last weekend.

“So far the lads have almost put that Leeds game to bed and they’re focusing on Saturday because that’s how it has to be. Games come so thick and fast in the Championship and you can’t dwell on any too long because you always preparing.

“Brentford are similar to Leeds in a way. They are not 6ft 2in every player, they are quite a small, slight team, but technically good, their movement is good and we have to cope with that.

“But it’s about us and we know with the players we’ve got if we can perform to the levels we can it should be a good game.”walk off that pitch knowing we’ve given it our best shot.”